Texas hospital struggles to make IBM's Watson cure cancer

If IBM is looking for a new application for its Watson machine learning tools, it might consider putting health care providers' procurement and systems integration woes ahead of curing cancer. The fall-out from that project has now prompted the resignation of the cancer center's president, Ronald DePinho, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The university recently published an internal audit report into the procurement processes that led it to hand almost $40 million to IBM and over $21 million to PwC for work on the project, almost all of it without board approval. It noted that the scope of its review was limited to contracting and procurement practices and compliance issues, and did not cover project management and system development activities. The audit "should not be interpreted as an opinion on the scientific basis or functional capabilities of the system in its current state," because a separate review of those aspects of the project is being conducted by an external consultant, it said. The Oncology Expert Advisor was intended to take in medical literature, treatment options, research data and patient records, using IBM's Watson machine learning algorithms to provide clinical advice to help oncologists in the community to provide the same level of care as doctors at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.